Message In A Bottle
by Melkur
Summary: After Adric's death & Tegan staying at Heathrow, Nyssa begins to question her place onboard the TARDIS & so begins to write a message in a bottle, as if to seek advice, & receives a response from someone she wasn't expecting to see or hear from ever again... (Set at the beginning of the gap between 'Time - Flight' & 'Arc Of Infinity' from Nyssa's perspective). Feedback appreciated


In the middle of the night (well, by TARDIS standards it felt like night…) Nyssa tip toes through the Tardis's numerous corridors, carrying a notepad & pan in one hand, an empty wine bottle in the other. She 'creeps' up to the Doctor's room, listens at the door (there is no noise from within), she slowly, silently, takes a large breath & slowly pushes the door open. There is a small creak at the start, but, apart from that, it opens effortlessly without any further noise. Nyssa takes a few silent steps through the door, leans through to see that the Doctor is deeply sleeping upon his bed. She smiles, takes a few steps backwards, pulling the door quickly, silently behind her. She sighs & returns to her room.

When she returns she perches upon the large, wicker chair, places the wine bottle down on the floor next to her, rests the notepad upon her lap & begins to write…

Hello,

There is a large probability that you don't know me, or my travelling companion The Doctor, but my name is Nyssa, Nyssa of Traken. I am the only daughter of Tremas, a council member of the governors of the Traken Union.

I'm not sure if I can go on travelling with The Doctor – I've lost** so** much since I first met him, first my stepmother Kassia, then my father & then my home system, Metula Orionsis, and all the people I cared for who lived there, all at the **manipulative**, **evil**, hands of The Doctor's greatest enemy, The Master. I suppose, logically speaking, it's not as if he 'truly' "claimed" the life of my father – He used his power as the Keeper of Traken to remove his soul, his mind, anything that made him my father & 'crushed' it, removing any trace of it, before claiming his body for his own, devious, maniacal needs, using it as a replacement for his own 'decayed' form, which was nearing the end of its 'natural' life. It's not just my family, my home, I've lost since meeting The Doctor, I've been shot at, taken at gunpoint, nearly been converted into a android, & lost my 2 best, & only, friends as well, the two people who I felt that I could confide almost anything in, the people who felt more than just friends to me, more like the brother & sister that I never had – Adric was killed saving Prehistoric Earth from a Cybermen's freighter & we left Tegan back at Heathrow after, once again, preventing one of The Master's schemes. I hope, more than anything that is the last time I encounter him, I just can't bear to see him any more, looking into my father's eyes & knowing that he is no longer behind them, but now, instead an evil, vile, creature of** hate**… In the few days since our last encounter with him, the day we left Tegan on Earth, that have passed between then & no (by TARDIS standards, of course – I can't claim to **fully** understand how the TARDIS works, even after all the hours I've put into research late into the night, so I have no idea where & when we are in the vortex in relation to 'normal' time). I hope Tegan that you have readjusted to 'regular' life outside of the TARDIS (though after "him", technologically advanced humanoid "frog" people, Mara, The Great Fire Of London & Adric's death, I suppose that life will never **quite** be the same for either one of us ever again), having returned back to Earth near enough the same day (relatively speaking) we joined the 'TARDIS crew'. Oh Tegan, I miss you so, Adric too, now that the both of you have gone. The two of you are two of the people I care about the most, along with The Doctor & my father, of course.

I think it's you staying on Earth & the death of my father & Adric that are making me reconsider my 'position' here onboard the TARDIS, and only hope that writing this will get my feelings out into the open so that I can 'clear them up'. At the moment The Doctor & I are still travelling around, but we're still changing, adapting, to the fact that Tegan & Adric have now left. To me it seems as if we're travelling around less now that they've gone, it seems that The Doctor isn't fully 'with it' at the moment, like his hearts aren't quite in the same place they were, that he isn't as graceful, heroic, brave as he was before, just the walking shell of a man who has begun to give up all sign of hope, as if he is slowly realizing that at sometime I'll leave him too, like everyone does… At times, whenever he thinks I'm not around I've noticed him fixing parts of the TARDIS, whether it be parts of the console on the blink or other things that he's been putting off throughout the centuries, as if trying to forget everything that has happened throughout his lives. I think that that might be one of the main reasons why he travels around, escaping danger by the skin of his teeth, to give himself fewer chances to contemplate, to think of home or the people he once travelled with, throughout the ages, as if he doesn't like to remember, as if the scars can be too much to bear. To be honest, I don't think I would want to have my travels with him to be any different. I have always felt safe with him, no matter what the threat, no matter what the consequences of our actions, I always feel safe with him, regardless of his form or who we're travelling with – There is still so much more that I can learn from our travels together, & I hope that, when the day eventually comes, I can put my knowledge to good use…

Well, I'm 'signing off' now, as The Doctor would say, & just wanted to say that whoever you are, wherever you are, if you're reading this message, then let the people who you care about, and care about you, know how much you appreciate everything they do, as you never know when the last time you're going to see them will be.

Yours,

Nyssa Of Traken

Nyssa slowly sits up from her 'slouched' position on the wicker chair, sighs, slowly, carefully, tears her letter from the notebook, tightly rolls them up, removes the cork & inserts them into the wine bottle through the top before returning the cork from whence it came.

She sits up, walks over to the door switches off the light & heads down the corridor towards the console room.

When she gets there she walks over to the console, walks round it, pushing the occasional button, flicking the occasional leaver. She pauses & looks over sadly at the doors & slowly exhales. She walks round to the red door-opening lever & pulls it, opening the doors. When they open fully she walks over to them & throws the wine bottle into the vortex. She stands there for a few moments, giving a small, almost sad, smile. "'til we meet again Tegan…" she says to herself. She then walks back over to the console, returns the door lever to its original position, walks back to her room, sits on her bed, grabs one of the pillows, & hugs it as she lays down to go to sleep.

In the vortex the old Police Book's light slowly flashes, makes the 'wheezing groaning' sound & the bottle slowly dematerializes.

London, 2015

A much old Tegan Jovanka lies on her bed, sleeping. On the downstairs kitchen table the 'message in a bottle' slowly materializes into existence, still 'wheezing & groaning'. The noise rouses Tegan & she slowly walks downstairs, sleepily, to the kitchen to find the source of the noise. She looks around the kitchen, not noticing anything out of the ordinary until she notices the wine bottle sitting on the middle of the kitchen table, next to the vase of lilacs. "I don't remember drinking that…" she mutters, rubbing her eyes in an attempt to wake herself up.

Tegan pulls out one of the chairs from under the table & studies the bottle for a few moments before realizing that there's some rolled up paper inside. She reaches over to the bottle, removes the cork from the top, places it on the side & then slowly, delicately, takes the paper out from inside the bottle, and begins to read Nyssa's letter.

A few minutes later, a tear in her eye, Tegan puts down the letter, sighs & begins to remember her days with The Doctor, Nyssa, Adric & Turlough in the TARDIS. She gets up, walks over to one of the draws. Inside there is a large, mobile phone-esque device. She picks it up, holds down one of the buttons, almost like a walkie talkie, & says into the speaker, "Nyssa, it's me – Tegan. I've just found a letter by you from out days in the TARDIS, shortly after I left you & The Doctor at Heathrow…"


End file.
